Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Oscar Otte won his quarter-finals in Stuttgart without a fight and has reached a semi-final on the ATP tour for the second time in his tennis career. The man from Cologne didn't even have to play on Friday because his opponent Benjamin Bonzi from France withdrew due to abdominal pain, according to the organizer.
"I've already written to Benjamin, he's not doing so well," said Otte about Bonzi's health problems. The Frenchman went to the hospital for an examination. "I would have liked to have had a nice match in front of my home crowd. Otherwise you have to see it as a sport, I have to take it with me, I've saved a few strengths."
In the semi-finals of the grass event, worth 769,645 euros, Otte will meet last year's Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini on Saturday. The 2019 Stuttgart winner held his own in the Italian quarterfinals against Lorenzo Sonego 3: 6, 6: 3, 6: 4. Top ten player Berrettini is making his comeback in Stuttgart after a minor wrist operation. He had skipped the clay court season.
Otte was the only German quarter-finalist in the preparatory tournament for the grass classic in Wimbledon. In the first two rounds, the 28-year-old won the German duel with Daniel Altmaier from Kempen and then surprisingly prevailed against the favored Canadian Denis Shapovalov. At the clay court tournament in Munich, Otte reached an ATP semi-final for the first time at the end of April.
